Your Time, Your Way
Answering all your questions about productivity and self-development.
How to Get Back On Track When the Wheels Come Off
Podcast 436
Learn more about the How To Get Back On Track Course here:
https://www.carlpullein.com/blog/when-things-fall-apart/2/10/2026
Perhaps the biggest difficulty people face when managing their work is not creating a system or building processes. It’s maintaining those systems and processes when they become overloaded by work and personal commitments.
In this week’s episode, I’m sharing a few ideas that have helped me regain control over the years when things have become a little bit frazzled, and the work coming in is greater than the amo...
The Annual Planning Season Kick Off
This week's episode is a special one.
Taken from my Annual Planning episode last year, this will show you how to make next year a productive, focused one that will leave you energised and fulfilled.
“I used to say, ‘I sure hope things will change, ' then I learned that the only way things are going to change for me is when I change."
That’s a quote from the wonderful Jim Rohn. A strong proponent of developing a plan for your life, and a part of that is creating a strong pl...
Why Time Blocking Keeps Failing You
"It was Hercule Poirot’s custom to open his morning mail using a small letter-opener with an ivory handle, making a neat slice along the top edge of each envelope... Each letter was then extracted, unfolded, smoothed flat with the palm of his hand, and read with deliberate, unhurried precision. Only when one piece of correspondence was thoroughly digested and placed in its neat, appointed stack would he permit himself to move on to the next."
That’s an extract from Sophie Hannah’s Hercule Poirot’s continuation novel, The Monogram Murders, which captures a part of Hercule...
The Productive Power Of A Proper Tea Break
How often do you take a mid-morning tea break? I mean a proper break, where you stop work for fifteen minutes or so mid-morning?
It turns out very few people do this these days. And if they do get themselves a cup of tea or coffee, it’s done on the go or at their desks while continuing to work.
Complete madness. Is it any wonder why so many people feel burnt out, exhausted and unable to spend any quality time with their nearest and dearest?
This week, we’re looking at why bringin...
How To Fix The Top 5 Productivity and Time Management Pain Points
What are the top 5 pain points with time management and productivity that over 400 of my past and current coaching clients have faced?
The results may, or may not, surprise you.
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Get Your Copy Of Your Time, Your Way: Time Well Managed, Life Well Lived
<...Are You Overcommitted Without Realising It?
An overflowing task manager and a crowded-out calendar are rarely ever caused by using the wrong tools. The problem happened well before you entered the task or added the appointment to your task manager or calendar.
And that’s what we’re looking at this week.
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Apollo 13 Lunar Module Start-up Procedures
The Working Wi...
Why Everything Feels Like It Needs to Be Done Today
Have you ever wondered if your time management and productivity issues might not be about the amount of work you have to do, but rather the way you think about that work?
That’s what we’re looking at today.
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Plan Your Week With Me: The Weekly Planning Matrix.
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Why You Never Have Time for Your Most Important Work
When filling up your car with fuel, how do you know when it’s full? Well, the fuel filler nozzle clicks off. A sensor triggers the fuel to shut off.
Yet did you know that the sensor is programmed to trigger when the fuel tank is 85 to 95% full? There is an intentional air pocket left in the tank to accommodate the fuel’s natural expansion due to heat.
Now ask yourself: how do you know when your calendar is full? Do you have a safety gap to allow for unexpected events that will naturally occur in th...
Why You’re Too Tired to Plan Tomorrow
“In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.”
That was Theodore Roosevelt, giving his thoughts on making a decision, and in this week’s episode, I am answering a question about why we may be trying to solve a time management problem the wrong way.
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Why You’re Still Overwhelmed After Trying Every Productivity System
Are you on a mission to find the best productivity app or system, and find that no matter how many apps or new methods you try, you still find yourself overwhelmed, backlogged and stuck? Well, this week I want to tell you about a new way I can help you.
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Your To-Do List Is Hiding the Truth About Your Time.
What drives your day? Your calendar or your to-do list? Or perhaps your boss? The answer to that question will determine whether you are or will be productive each day.
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How to Protect Your Most Important Work When Everything Goes Off Plan
The legendary American Football coach, Vince Lombardi, said: “It’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get up."
Now that’s true in American Football, and it’s also true in life.
No matter how well you plan your day or your week, your plan will inevitably get attacked by outside influences.
A disorganised, reactive boss, a tired son or daughter who won’t get out of bed in the morning, a traffic jam on the way to an important meeting, or your accountant telling you that you need to pay a big ta...
You Don’t Need More Time. You Need Fewer Choices.
Socrates, that wise philosopher of the 5th century BC, said:
"The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less."
And the consensus across the centuries has always been clear: happiness isn't a destination you reach by wanting or accumulating more, but a state of mind achieved by reducing what you want.
This week, I’m exploring the common problem of wanting to do more and more, yet never finding the time to do what you want.
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How to Keep Going When the Motivation has Gone
You may have come across the quote: “Motivation gets you started, but discipline keeps you growing." By John C. Maxwell, the author and leadership mentor.
Motivation is an interesting concept. It’s often required to get things started, but if you only rely on your motivation to do something, particularly if that something is not easy or particularly enjoyable, it won’t keep you going.
This week, we’re looking at how to use motivation to develop the right habits that will keep you consistent.
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How to Stop Interruptions.
Zig Ziglar said, “Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have 24 hours a day”
When you know where you are going and what you want, you will often find that time will take care of itself. Yet when we have no direction, no idea of what we want, and allow other people to dictate what we do and when, that’s when time, or rather a perceived lack of it, becomes the issue.
Today, we’re looking at how to discover our direction and decide what we actually want.
How to Build a Plan That Actually Bends
"A million dollars a shot is my price. But I only take one a year. The rest of the time I maintain my skills."
That was Francisco Scaramanga, the villain in The Man With the Golden Gun, played by the superb Christopher Lee. Who, interestingly, was a cousin of James Bond creator Ian Fleming and a regular golfing partner of his.
Now, while I certainly wouldn’t recommend following Scaramanga’s career path, there’s a valuable lesson in that line.
The reason Scaramanga could ask such a high price was not because he wor...
How to Get Started With COD
“In baseball, my theory is to strive for consistency, not to worry about the numbers. If you dwell on statistics, you get shortsighted; if you aim for consistency, the numbers will be there at the end.”
That was Tom Seaver, an outstanding baseball player. And it points to an important factor in managing your time and being productive.
And it’s a single word: Consistency.
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The COD Productivity Method
Learn more about the Quiet Productivity Method here
Why Your Standards Matter and How Arsenal Won the Premier League.
If you follow the English Premier League, you will know that Arsenal won the Premier League title a couple of weeks ago.
It’s been a tough 6-year journey for their manager, Mikel Arteta, but what stood out is that no matter how hard things got, Arteta stuck to the standards he set at the club and, more importantly, focused on following his plan.
He knew that to take Arsenal back to the top, there had to be a plan, and to ensure the plan was followed, standards needed to be set.
In this...
A Calmer, More Human Approach to Time Management
Is it possible to remain calm and focused when everything around us is getting faster, noisier and seemingly more demanding?
I think it is, and in this week’s episode, I’ll share some of my insights so you, too, can remain productive in a quiet, focused way.
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Learn more about the Quiet Productivity Method here
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How to Stick with Time Blocking the Right Way
There’s a conflict in time management and productivity that few people ever talk about. That’s the conflict between being productive and being responsive.
It’s almost like the Ying and Yang of life. A sort of Newtonian “everything has an equal and opposite reaction.”
While we may want to shut ourselves away and give our full focus to an important piece of work, there’s always someone, somewhere, who wants to interrupt us and keep us from being productive.
It’s this that we will be looking at this week.
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How to do a Reset.
If you’re listening to this, there’s a good chance you’re a human being. (Although the speed at which AI is developing may be not all of you… A big hello to Gemini, Claude and ChatGPT (As Boris Johnson would say it)
And, as a human being, you’re attacked every day by emotions, fatigue, viruses and micro-managing bosses and demanding colleagues.
You’re not going to be able to stay consistent with your productivity systems and processes. (And even AI gets confused from time to time)
You WILL fall off the wagon fro...
The Time Management Secret I Wish Everyone Knew About
What are your priorities today? What about tomorrow? Do you even know?
This week, I’m sharing a simple switch you can make that will make prioritising your work almost automatic… Almost.
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What is Time-Based Productivity?
Learn more and register for the Ultimate Productivity Workshop here.
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The Best Ways to Organise Your To-Dos
Podcast 414
"Organisation is what you do before you do something, so that when you do it, it is not all mixed up. But if you spend all your time organising, you never do the 'something'."
That’s a paraphrase of a quote from A. A. Milne and his book The House at Pooh Corner. And touches on the question I’m asking this week.
Let’s go,
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How 1920s England can Inspire Your Productivity
“I have the most ill-regulated memory. It does those things which it ought not to do and leaves undone the things it ought to have done. But it has not yet gone on strike altogether.”
I’ve been reading Dorothy L Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey novels. Set in the 1920s and 30s, the stories feature an aristocratic private detective in a style similar to Sherlock Holmes. And that quote comes from Lord Peter Wimsey himself.
In this week’s episode, I share some of the productivity methods these fictional characters followed, as well as some from the b...
How to Find Your Purpose in Retirement
Podcast 412
Continuing my series on designing the “perfect” retirement, this week, I share some insights on one of the most common fears of retirement, that of losing your purpose.
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Lessons in Purpose and Productivity When Planning Your Retirement
Podcast 411
Last July, I had a conversation with my father-in-law. He was scared and worried. He was due to retire at the end of 2026 (now only a few months away), and he had no idea what to do.
It was that conversation that inspired me to dig deep into what it takes to build a solid, meaningful and joyful retirement. That’s what we’re going to look into today.
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Interview with H...
How to Time Block Like a Leader
Have you ever wondered how those in highly demanding jobs that require almost 24/7 attention to the job manage to do it? Well, I’ve been researching and found a few common habits that may help you get more out of your day.
Let’s begin…
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The 2026 Spring 50 Sale
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...How to Easily Manage Your Communications
Email, Teams, Slack and other instant messaging systems are great, until they clog up our day and we find we spend more time responding to messages than we do doing any meaningful work.
What can we do? Well, that’s what I’m answering in this week’s episode.
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The Hybrid Productivity Course
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How to Protect Your Time for What Matters
"The key is not to prioritise what's on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities."
Ah, Stephen Covey got it right. If you don’t know what your priorities are, whatever’s on your calendar will be prioritised, which often means low-value meetings and other people’s urgencies. Not a great way to work if you want to be more productive and better at managing your time.
This week, we’re looking at identifying your core work and eliminating the non-essential.
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The Hybrid Prod...
Where AI Can Help Your Productivity and Where It Won't
“By far, the greatest danger of AI is that people conclude too early that they understand it” —Eliezer Yudkowsky, AI researcher
AI is everywhere today, and there are many exciting claims about what it can do to help us be more productive. But, is this just hype, or are there aspects of AI that can improve our productivity?
That’s the question I am answering today.
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The Hybrid Productivity Course
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How To Stay Focused on Your Day
Steve Jobs once said, “Deciding what NOT to do is as important as deciding what TO do”, and that quote has been, and still is, a cornerstone of my whole time management and productivity philosophy.
Today, I answer a question about dealing with all the little things that pop up each day while staying focused on what is important.
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The Ultimate Productivity Workshop
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How to Get Control of Your Priorities
“If everything’s important, then nothing is important”. You’ve probably heard that many times. Yet, are you guilty of ignoring it?
In today’s episode, I share with you a few ideas on how to best prioritise your days.
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Why Hybrid Productivity Systems are the Most Effective Systems
Podcast 405
"Pen and paper will solve almost anything. Or at least start the process."
- Nicholas Bate
This week, I have a special episode for you about what I have discovered over the last two years from bringing pens and paper back into my productivity system. It’s certainly been an eye-opener for me.
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The Hybrid Productivity Course
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Time Blocking for People Who Hate Being Boxed In
Peter Drucker once said “Until we can manage time, we can manage nothing else”
How is your management of time?
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The Time-Based Productivity Course
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Managing "AI-Generated Work Bloat"
You’ve probably heard of something called AI. It seems everyone is talking about it. The question is: how will this affect our productivity, and what can we do to ensure we are ready for the likely changes this year?
That’s what I’m answering this week.
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Take the Time Sector System Course
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How to Build a Searchable Archive for Your Personal and Work Documents
Albert Einstein once said, “Organised people are just too lazy to go looking for what they want.” And I think he makes a very good point.
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Mastering Digital Notes Organisation Course
The File Management Course
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Mastering GAPRA: A Simple Structure for Your Digital Life
WOW! We’ve reached the 400th episode of this podcast. I’d like to thank all of you for being here with me on this incredible journey.
And now, let us begin.
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Standards vs. Motivation: How to Live Your Life on Your Own Terms in 2026
“Most people overestimate what they can achieve in twelve months and underestimate what they can accomplish in a decade.”
I first heard that quote from Tony Robbins, and it completely changed my approach to yearly goals. I stopped setting ‘New Year’s resolutions’ and began looking further ahead to see what I could do over the next twelve months that would move me closer to my longer-term dreams and goals.
In this week’s special episode, I will share with you why smaller steps over the next twelve months will do so much more for you than tryin...
The Best Way to Get Consistent With Your Morning Routine
"The first ritual you do during the day is the highest leveraged ritual, by far, because it has the effect of setting the mind and setting the context for the rest of your day."
— Naval Ravikant or was it Eben Pagan? I don’t know, but it’s a great quote to begin today’s episode.
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Overcoming Project Freeze: How to Start When You Feel Stuck
"I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth."
That was President John Kennedy in 1961, speaking at the Joint Session of Congress. It is possibly the best example of a project statement ever made.
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